The ancient pathways pounded by St Mungo as he built his church at the tiny fishing settlement called Glas Gu are positively futuristic by comparison.
After lying concealed by vegetation and woodland for what may be almost 3000 years, archaeologists have unearthed what they believe to be Glasgow's oldest surviving thoroughfare.
The heavily paved road, between 50 and 100 metres in length and leading into a stone settlement protected by large earth banks and ditches, has been discovered in a densely wooded section of the city's Pollok Park by a team made up of Glasgow University academics and members of the Glasgow Archaeological Society.
If their guesses are correct, the road dates from between 500BC and 700BC and could well be the avenue and entrance into the home of an influential Iron Age southsider.
Protected from developers over the past two centuries due to its location within Pollok Estate, the only comparison in terms of age and scale in the Glasgow area was pulverized in the early part of the decade to make way for the IKEA store within the Braehead complex.
The dig team revealed their findings after commencing their second year's excavations within Pollok Park, which they believe will eventually paint a picture of the evolution of the area from the Iron Age through to the pre-Christians and Dark Ages, the arrival of the Anglo-Norman Maxwell family and the medieval period right up to the modern era.
In the past few days work has commenced on another ancient ring works site, ironically in the immediate vicinity of the controversial Go Ape assault course proposed for the park's North Wood.
About 30 metres in diameter, the earth banks and ditches around the perimeter are still visible to the casual observer despite the trees, as is the evidence that the woodland was once ploughed agricultural land.
Pottery and pieces of metal tools unearthed in the past few days and, according to Professor of Historical Archaeology Stephen Driscoll, the layout of the fortified homestead within it suggest the Dark Ages or early medieval, around 1100AD.
But his colleague, post-graduate student Mark Mitchell, now in his second year of a five-year thesis on the area, reckons the shape of the earth banks make the settlement much older, creating a link between pre-Christian Pollok and the Maxwells, although only the discovery of some wood from the era will allow carbon dating.
Certainly medieval is the large bank and ditch, favoured by mountain bikers in the park but in recent days identified as a likely recreational hunting ground with deer enclosed and then hunted by them and their aristocratic friends, while the peasantry were kept very much on the outside.
A less expected find is what appears to be a concrete urinal and water tank system from the early 20th century, covered in undergrowth and showing up on no map of the park.
The park was once a complex estate incorporating Pollokshields, Pollokshaws and Haggs Castle and had been home to the Maxwells since around 1100, when the Anglo-Normans led by the Stuarts pushed the old Briton kings out of Strathclyde.
The original castle is now believed by the team to have stood close to where the existing Pollok House was built in 1752.
Efforts to piece together the history were helped last year when, following an article in The Herald, a retired doctor who worked on a dig at the Iron Age site in the 1950s as a 16-year-old school boy came forward and gave descriptions of a stone corn mill which puts it in the BC period.
Professor Driscoll said: "We thought everyone involved in the 1950s dig was dead but this chap came forward. The key for dating the ring works and road would be the corn stone which appears to have been lost but the description given makes it more BC than AD.
"The road into the settlement was very much telling people they were now arriving at this particular place. It was a place that was really well paved. The defences wouldn't have stopped an army but there was evidence of a lot of labour. These people had status and the ring works had room for three dwellings or one large dwelling."
Mr Mitchell added: "It's unusual to have so much of archaeological interest in the one park and the survivability is testament to how the estate has been managed in the past and present.
"Eventually the research will be published and we hope it will illuminate how this area interfaced with other estates like Glasgow and Rutherglen, as well as the relationship with religious places like Glasgow, Govan and Paisley."
From: The Herald.co.uk
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